


Slow, Grow

by curiouswildflower



Series: Bend, Mend Verse [2]
Category: Do No Harm (TV)
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, Magic AU, Other, but honestly every fic for this trio is h/c so who's surprised
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-18
Updated: 2017-07-21
Packaged: 2018-12-03 15:55:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,504
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11535504
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/curiouswildflower/pseuds/curiouswildflower
Summary: A hurricane hits New York City, and the trio has thoughts about bending and healing.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> the plan for this is three chapters, one from each POV. this is following the events of _Bend, Mend_ in a universe where some people have the ability to bend elements. I encourage you to read that first. this is not beta-ed.  <3

“You know, I used to be mad that hurricanes all had white people names.”

Vanessa stirs her spoon, wiggling her fingers through the steam that rises off the sancocho. She watches as it twirls and dances before disappearing, the sound of pounding rain muted through the roof. She glances up and sees Ruben smiling at her.

“I’m still mad that I share my name with a disgusting sandwich.”

She smiles back at him. “They are pretty gross. Corned beef and sauerkraut?”

Ruben sticks out his tongue and Usnavi laughs.

“It isn’t even spelled right.” He adds, holding up one finger at a time as he spells, “R-U-E-B-E-N. Too many E’s.” 

Ruben looks at him and nods. “Exactly. _Rubén_ means ‘a son’ anyway. Why’d you name a sandwich that?”

A crash of thunder explodes above them. Usnavi jumps, Ruben glances at the ceiling.

“But I guess it’s appropriate hurricanes have white people names, isn’t it?” he asks. 

Vanessa nods. “I’d like it if there was a Hurricane Vanessa. My namesake, terrorizing New York City.”

“You terrorize New York plenty.”

Vanessa grabs the last roll off the pan in front of her and throws it at Usnavi. He shrieks and dodges to the side, falling onto the floor. Ruben laughs so hard he drops his spoon, sending soup splashing over the sides of his bowl. Usnavi climbs back into his chair, grumbling, and shouts “Hey!” as Vanessa steals the roll off his napkin.

\--

 

_Hurricane Vanessa._ She imagines a weather reporter saying it on the news. _150 miles an hour winds. Torrential rainstorms._

She wonders if she could create hurricane-force winds. Winds so loud you can’t hear anything else. Winds so strong they blow planes out of the sky. Sometimes she feels like she can.

She always associated her air bending with wind. Learning about tornados in grade school and recognizing them. Changing pressures in the sky, hot and cold shoving against each other and swirling into destruction. The feeling inside her chest when Kennedy Matthews tore the cover of Nina’s book at recess, or the feeling when her dad comes to visit.

She learns she can be a pleasant wind too, a cool-breeze-on-a-hot-day kind of wind. The kind of wind that ruffles her hair and blows Usnavi’s hat off his head. The kind of wind that pushes their kites into the air at Benny’s birthday party. 

She tells Usnavi she’s an air bender at Nina’s high school graduation party. He wonders out loud how girls manage to keep the caps on their heads, and Nina says that she used at least twenty-five bobby pins. He turns to her, probably expecting confirmation that she pinned hers down too, but no one is paying attention to them and she thinks she might love him, so she says, “The wind and I get along. It doesn’t mess with my hair.”

He squints at her for a moment before she watches the realization play across his face. She nods, and he nods back, and they don’t talk about it anymore.

She doesn’t learn Usnavi is an air bender until a few years later, once they’re officially dating. He’s quiet about it, admits that the only people who know are his parents, Abuela Claudia, and Benny.

“My parents didn’t even want to tell Abuela,” he explains, opening and closing his hand to make a small swirl of air appear and disappear above his palm. “But she found out. And I told Benny after they died. He was staying with me so much, keeping an eye on me you know? I didn’t want him to ask questions, so I just told him.”

“I never would have guessed.” She admits. 

Usnavi shrugs. “Thanks for not being mad that I didn’t tell you before.”

She leans forward and kisses him, long soft presses of her mouth against his. “No. I’m not mad.”

She is surprised though. She can’t imagine a tornado swirling inside Usnavi like the one that lives in her. And it takes several months of watching him bend freely around her for her to notice that she doesn’t recognize his tornado because he doesn’t have one.

Not in the sense that his bending is less powerful than hers, but where her bending is wind, Usnavi’s bending is breath.

She explains it to Ruben over coffee, tucked away in the corner of the shop they meet at during her lunch break sometimes. Ruben’s never met another bender, and he’s asking her about the different things she and Usnavi are capable of. His time in New York shows in his developing willingness to trust the anonymity of a crowd – a facet of her city that Vanessa has thrived on her whole life.

“Usnavi is the most subtle bender I’ve ever met.” She says with a fond shake of her head. “I realized - he bends the air in his chest to let him fit more words. I don’t know if he knows that he does it.”

Ruben laughs. Vanessa watches him fold his hands around his coffee cup, glances up and catches the happy crinkle beside his eyes. She looks out at the relentless rain, takes a sip of her latte.

“Once, Sonny was choking on something at the store. I watched Usnavi pull the air out of Sonny’s chest strong enough remove the hard candy, or whatever it was. I have no idea how he did it without collapsing Sonny’s lungs.”

“Shit.” Ruben says quietly. She nods. 

“Our bending is pretty different.”

She twines her fingers with Ruben’s when he touches the back of her hand. They go back to their coffee, parting ways with a kiss when she has to get back to work.

\--

 

Vanessa wakes up to Ruben’s phone alarm, yawning as she watches him climb out of bed. He tries to click on the lamp on the nightstand, huffing when it doesn’t work. He walks over and flips the light switch a few times and when the room stays dark he announces what she figured was inevitable during the course of this storm.

“The power’s out.”

He climbs back in bed next to her as they both pull up their emails. Vanessa reads the announcement that her office is closed for the day as Ruben says, “They don’t want students to try to commute in today, so they closed the school.”

“The magazine is closed too.” 

He leans over to set his phone on the nightstand and he does the same with hers when she hands it to him.

“Want to go back to sleep?” he asks.

“Oh my God, absolutely.”

He laughs, scooting back over to her. Vanessa twines their legs together as they lay back down and she rubs a thumb over his soft sleep shirt.

“Think Usnavi is still going to open the store today?”

They both glance towards the doorway when they hear, “Nope.” Usnavi slides his hat off his head, setting it on top of the dresser as he starts to unbutton his jeans. “I just posted signs on the doors – the power is out there too and if anyone has an emergency they can come upstairs and knock here.”

Stripped down to Ruben’s boxer briefs and a white tank top, Usnavi digs his way under the covers to curl up on Ruben’s other side. He leans over to kiss Vanessa across Ruben’s chest.

“We’re all going to cuddle and sleep, then we’re going to change and find every candle I own and go cuddle and make out in the living room. Eventually we can eat cereal or something.”

“’s a good plan, Navi.” Ruben says sleepily. Vanessa smiles at Usnavi, kissing him again before laying back down.

“I’m full of good plans.” 

When she wakes up again she’s alone. She can hear the boys opening drawers on the other side of the closed door, probably searching the kitchen. She makes her way over to the dresser, changing into a new pair of underwear and dragging open their Cozy Clothes Drawer, introduced when they realized just how many incredibly soft sweaters and button ups Ruben owns. 

She digs a plaid out of the back. It looks blue and pink in the darkness, crinkled from disuse. She slips it on and buttons it a few times to keep it closed, forgoing a bra. She wanders into the kitchen as she piles her hair on top of her head, trying to remember if she bought dry shampoo the last time she ran out.

There’s the sound of a loud _thunk_ and breaking glass, and her hair billows down over her shoulders as she startles. Usnavi shouts “Ruben!” and Vanessa notices the broken candle at Ruben’s bare feet.

He stumbles back and catches himself on the counter. Usnavi rushes over from the living room with a hand outstretched, flinching back when Ruben shouts, “Don’t touch me!”

He’s staring at her, staring at her chest. “What?” she shouts as her heart starts to race. “What’s wrong?”

“That’s,” he’s gasping, and in the darkness Vanessa sees electricity crackle off his fingers where they curl around the countertop. “That’s the shirt I wore in Jamaica.”

Usnavi turns to look at her with a quiet “ _Dios mio_ ,” and the winds in Vanessa’s chest howl like the winds around their apartment. She looks down at her shaking fingers as she tries to unbutton her shirt - “Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God” - giving up and tearing at the neckline, trying to jerk it over her head. She feels hands at her waist, looks up to see Usnavi with wild eyes helping her pull it off. Finally it falls off her wrists onto the floor and she looks up to see Ruben with his eyes closed, scratching at his wrists. 

“ _Rubén,_ don’t hurt yourself,” Usnavi says softly, avoiding the glass as he rushes back over to him. Vanessa feels frozen where she stands.

“Where did you get that?” Ruben asks, voice choked.

“In the drawer! It was in the dresser, I swear, I didn’t know.” she folds her arms across her now bare chest. “I don’t, I can’t – Ruben, why do you still have it?”

“I don’t know.” Ruben has switched his grip so he’s squeezing his wrists, and Usnavi risks touching the backs of his hands. Ruben jumps, glancing at Usnavi. “I don’t know, I don’t know why I never got rid of it, I’m so sorry I don’t know.”

“Why would you keep it?” she doesn’t mean to shout but she can’t hear herself think over her pounding heart and howling thoughts.

“I don’t know!” Ruben shouts back, fingers sparking again. He looks down at his hands, rubbing them together fiercely. “Shit, shit shit I’m sorry.”

Vanessa shakes her head and turns, stepping back into the bedroom and shutting the door quickly behind her. She sits, leaning back against the door and pressing her hands against her ears. It takes several minutes of breathing for her to tell a difference between the pounding in her head and the pounding rain against the window. She reaches out and picks a tshirt off the floor, a school shirt of Usnavi’s from high school. She slides it on and finds a pair of leggings as she tries to listen for any sounds the boys might be making, but all she can hear is the hurricane.

She finds them in the living room, curled together on the couch. Usnavi rubbing Ruben’s back, whispering to him quietly. Ruben stares in the direction of the darkened TV from his place against Usnavi’s chest, and he doesn’t turn to look at Vanessa as she walks over to them.

“ _Querido._ ” She says softly. “I’m so sorry.”

He doesn’t respond. She glances up at Usnavi, asks, “Is he-“

“I’m here.” he says quietly. “I’m here. I’m sorry for freaking out. You’re right, there’s no way you could have known.”

She huffs, crouching in his line of sight. Her chest burns, and she wonders if Ruben’s heart feels like this all the time. “I shouldn’t have yelled at you. I’m sorry.”

She can feel Usnavi’s eyes on her. “Ruben, I was so scared.” She’s furious, for a moment, at the waver in her voice. But in the years of dating Usnavi she’s practiced naming the whirlwind of emotions inside of her, and she’s gotten better at saying the names out loud. “We try so hard not to hurt you.”

Ruben looks at her, even though she can tell he’s looking at her eyebrows. “I’m okay. You just surprised me.”

Vanessa nods. She and Usnavi learned early on that they need to trust him when he tells them how he is, because living with the constant worry that he’s downplaying his distress was exhausting at best and patronizing at worst. She sits against the foot of the couch.

“Can I touch you too?” she asks. Ruben glances down to her eyes briefly, nodding. When her hand cards through his hair he sighs and closes his eyes. 

“Despite unexpected diversions, I think we’re still mostly on track for my plan.” Usnavi says quietly. “We can reschedule the making out for later. And we don’t need candles.”

Vanessa feels the corner of her mouth turn up. Usnavi continues to rub Ruben’s back in a steady rhythm, and she wonders if he’s bending Ruben’s breath. 

Vanessa’s legs go numb while Ruben naps. When he wakes up, Usnavi wiggles out from under him to make peanut butter sandwiches for lunch. Ruben props himself up and slides onto the ground next to Vanessa. He curls an arm around her waist under her shirt, leaning his head on her shoulder.

“We’re okay, V.” he says quietly. 

She kisses his head, tracing her fingertips along his bare legs.

“We’re okay.” She agrees.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The storm starts to let up, and there are thoughts about needs and dancing and kisses.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter, and kind of this whole fic, came from some prompts from @tomorrowsrain. She gave me the Beau Taplin quote used here, and she wanted a glimpse at Ruben being a professor. Thanks, you. <3

The power stays out for two days. They each reach a breaking point before the rain does. 

Usnavi starts crying when they run out of peanut butter. He offers to go downstairs and get more from the store, but when Ruben urges him not to go outside because of the winds Usnavi gets wide-eyed with horror and starts leaking tears. Shocked, Ruben looks over at Vanessa, who sighs and pulls Usnavi into her arms. 

“The store will survive, _querido_. It’s only a Category 1, and the grate is down. If anything is damaged we’ll help you clean it this time, okay?”

Ruben scrunches his eyebrows at her, mouths _This time?_ Vanessa mouths back _Abuela_. Ruben nods, thinks of the story a tipsy tearful Usnavi whispered into Ruben’s shoulder on their first fourth of July together. 

Vanessa leaves soon after, promising she’s just going to walk around the apartment complex. She’s gone for hours, and mid-afternoon Ruben finds her running the stairs.

“We’re trapped here, Ruben.” She shouts, long ponytail bouncing off her back as she rushes past him. “I’m trapped.”

“I’m sorry you feel that way.” He says quietly, rubbing his thumb against his fingertips and trying not to sound like a robot. “Can I help?”

She pauses, one floor above him, panting. She leans on the railing, looking down at him, and cracks a smile. “No. I’m okay. Just let me run for a while. The last weather report said it should be done tomorrow?”

Ruben nods.

She sighs. “Okay. Can I have a few days on my own after this? It’s… suffocating.”

Ruben nods again. “Whatever you need, _linda._ ”

Vanessa smiles at the name, blows Ruben a kiss with enough force behind it that he feels a push of air against his cheek. He smiles back at her and she turns to keep running.

Ruben’s skin starts to crawl around dinnertime. Usnavi risks cracking the fridge open to put together a refreshingly cool meal of beans, cheese, tomatoes, and peppers that they all eat from a big bowl with chips and fingers. Dinner is quiet other than Usnavi’s humming, and Ruben’s brain feels full and sticky. He rubs at his eyes under his glasses, trying desperately to figure out what he could do to quiet the growing buzzing in his head. His skin itches from his missed shower and even his tolerance for heat is starting to meet its match with the stale, hot air inside their sealed-up apartment in the middle of August. His brain hurts from being in darkness for two days straight, and his phone died four hours ago so he can’t drown it out with his podcasts.

They’ve all been trying so hard to accommodate each other. Ruben doesn’t feel like he’s helped much – his freak out yesterday was draining for everyone and his brain has been loud ever since so his ability to read what Usnavi and Vanessa might need from him has felt fuzzy and wrong. He couldn’t help Usnavi’s anxieties about the store, he couldn’t help Vanessa feeling confined. He loves them he loves them but he can’t freak out again this soon he hasn’t done enough to help yet.

“Ruben?” Vanessa asks. He rubs at his eyes again, taking off his glasses and pressing with both heels of his palms.

“Hey, _Rubén_ , what’s wrong?”

_When did Usnavi stop humming? Why can’t I breathe?_

“What do you need?” Vanessa asks loudly, placing her hand on the table near his elbow.

“Do you need me to lay on you?” The sound of Usnavi scooting his chair closer is loud enough that Ruben flinches away from it, but it gets him to process Usnavi’s offer.

“Yes.” He says, stiff and loud. “Yes, actually. Yes.”

Usnavi stands, reaching for Ruben’s hands. “Come on, let’s lay in the kitchen on the tile. It’ll be cooler.”

Ruben nods, blinking his vision clear and letting Usnavi pull him over into the kitchen. Usnavi goes to help him down but Ruben pauses, rubbing his fingertips along the bottom hem of his sweater.

“Um.”

“What is it?” Vanessa asks, coming around to his side.

“Um. I have two requests but I don’t know if you’ll be okay with both of them at once and I don’t know how to figure out which one is more important.”

“Okay, that sounds like something we can help with. What are your two requests?”

Vanessa’s calm radiates from her in an almost tangible way. Ruben tilts his head in her direction.

“Um. Well, uh. One, I would like Usnavi to lay on me.”

“Okay. He said he would.”

Ruben nods. “Yeah. But. Two, I would like to take my sweater off? It’s hot in here, I’m really hot in my sweater and I just – usually I can handle being hot because I’m always hot but it’s getting to be too hot but I don’t know if he wants to touch that much of my bare skin and-“

“Ruben.” Vanessa’s voice is louder, she must have stepped closer. He studies her blue toenails. “Can you ask Usnavi? Or do you want me to?”

Ruben shakes his head. Vanessa asks, “Usnavi?”

Usnavi takes Ruben’s hands back, squeezing them. “I agree to lay on you with your sweater off. Do you want to lay on your chest, so I’m on your back? Or do you want to lay on your back?”

Ruben’s breath _woosh_ es out of him. “I’ll lay on my front. Thank you. Sorry I’m. Like this.”

Usnavi squeezes his hands again, then pulls away. “Take off your sweater, _querido_. You’re okay.”

The tile is cool on his chest and Usnavi is heavy on his back and Vanessa’s fingernails feel good against his scalp. He’s not sure how much time passes before his brain quiets down, before he can hear how much the rain has let up and feel how steady Usnavi’s breathing is.

“Did he fall asleep on me?” Ruben whispers. Vanessa smiles down at him.

“Yeah. You good?” 

Ruben nods, sighing. “We’re good, remember?” 

She leans down and kisses his head. “We’re good.”

\--

 

Two days later the college opens again, and Ruben spends an entire class period of his 200 level bio-chem class reviewing what they learned before the hurricane hit and rewired everyone’s brains a little bit. 

Rewired his, at least. His skin feels better after a thorough rub-down with coconut oil that morning, and his brain feels better after sleeping in his own bed in his air-conditioned apartment for a night. He has texts waiting on his phone, buzzing occasionally in his pocket throughout class, probably Usnavi reporting on how his first day back at the store is going. Ruben wipes down the white board as his students file out of class, thinking about how grateful he is to feel the sunlight again.

“Dr. Marcado?”

Ruben jumps, spinning around and dropping the eraser. The student, Ife, also jumps and they laugh at each other.

“Sorry, Dr. Marcado.”

“That’s alright. What can I help you with?”

He bends to pick up his eraser. He doesn’t know very much about Ife – she takes furious notes and last semester she aced all of his assignments. Her papers were all thoughtful and well-researched. He remembers hearing Dr. Nan say that she’s being fast tracked straight into a pharmacy program and he wonders if she needs a letter of recommendation.

“Do you read very much poetry?” is not the question he expects to come out of her mouth. Her dark arms are wrapped tight around her books and she looks as uncomfortable as he feels. But maybe he’s just projecting.

“Um. No?”

“Oh.” She shifts the weight of her backpack on her shoulders. “It’s just – your tattoos always make me think of this quote from Beau Taplin.”

Ruben turns and sets down the eraser, glancing down at his faded forests. In his silence, Ife continues.

“Your body is not a temple. Temples can be destroyed and desecrated. Your body is a forest – thick canopies of maple trees and sweet scented wildflowers sprouting in the underwood. You will grow back, over and over, no matter how badly you are devastated.” He watches her as she quotes it, not surprised in the slightest that she has something that long memorized. She’s looking down at his wrists.

After a moment of silence between them she looks up at him. He nods. “Thank you for telling me. That was beautiful.”

She nods back at him. “Forests like me quite a bit. I can generally get the earth to do what I want it to.”

Ruben tries not to let his confusion show, pictures her watering a garden full of vegetables. She seems like she’d be a good gardener – careful, dedicated. “Thank you, Ife. Can I help you with anything else?”

Her shoulders slump a bit, and Ruben wonders what she’s disappointed about. “No. Thank you, Dr. Marcado.”

He smiles at her. “See you on Monday.”

She smiles back, heading out of the classroom. During his largely uneventful commute back to his apartment he can’t seem to shake the quote.

Words aren’t his strong suit. They confuse him – their cloudy intent and multiple meanings. He could never force his or anyone else’s words into submission the way he could force numbers to slot into place. The way he could force his bending away. His doctoral program presented him with his first numbers that wouldn’t submit – numbers he had to learn to negotiate with. Numbers he had to learn to listen to, to dance with. 

He locks his apartment door behind him, sets his bag down and touches the lock again to make sure he latched it. He loosens his tie, touches the lock again, and steps out of his shoes.

Ruben gives up on cooking as soon as he looks at his stove, feeling his fingers buzz with electricity. He shakes his hands out and opens the fridge, pulling out fruit salad and a yogurt. Good enough.

As he eats he rubs at the zip-tie scars thick around his wrists, thinks about how lately he’s had to learn how to negotiate with his bending too. Jamaica, Ian – it changed him. Ruined the control he had on his fire, on his lightning. His body was so quick to spark in the months following, and he’s still not quite used to dancing with his bending like this. He doesn’t know who’s leading, he keeps stepping on his own feet.

He rubs his thumb against his fingertips and considers that sometimes he doesn’t want to lead. It was intoxicating, melting through plastic. Realizing he couldn’t be burned, at least not by fire. Realizing he couldn’t freeze. In his nightmares, sometimes he fights back. Levels the building, scorches Ian. Sits on Ian’s naked waist, rakes his fingers across Ian’s chest, fills Ian’s body with electricity. 

He can’t let his bending lead this dance, but sometimes he wonders. It helps that Usnavi and Vanessa bend so freely around him. Their bending doesn’t ruin their lives, their bending hasn’t ever destroyed anything.

 _But they’re air benders._ A voice that sounds too much like his dad’s whispers in his ear. The grape in his mouth tastes sour. _Of course your fire is more dangerous._ You’re _more dangerous._

He shakes his head, spears a piece of apple, and swipes through his phone until he can pull up a podcast.

\--

 

Ruben meets Usnavi at the store late Monday afternoon. There was no damage to the windows and business is largely back to normal, so Ruben is happy to get back into their normal routine. Vanessa always takes Mondays to herself, runs a bath and calls Nina and does whatever else she wants. Ruben likes to start his week with Usnavi, likes to check in on the store and watch Usnavi cook too much food and sleep in Usnavi’s bed. 

He shakes out his umbrella, hears Usnavi talking to whoever is at the counter about how this seems to be the last arm of the hurricane washing over the city tonight. Usnavi lights up when he notices Ruben, comes around the counter with a coffee as the customer heads out into the rain.

“The usual?” Ruben asks. Usnavi nods. “The usual price, too.”

Ruben rolls his eyes, smacking a kiss against Usnavi’s mouth. Usnavi hums exaggeratedly, smiling to himself. “My favorite payment.” 

Ruben laughs, taking the coffee from Usnavi’s hand. “Yeah? You letting everyone pay in kisses these days?”

Usnavi opens his eyes and grins. “Well everyone’s a little short on change since they had to take off work for the storm. How else are they supposed to pay for their _café con leche_ during these trying times?”

“Babe, I’m pretty sure that’s prostitution.” Ruben brushes past Usnavi, leaning his backpack and umbrella against the wall.

“Nooo,” Usnavi protests, “prostitution is if people pay in _money_ for my _kisses_. It’s just business to let people pay in _kisses_ for my _café_.” Ruben turns to see Usnavi’s hands outstretched, as if to demonstrate how different the concepts are.

“Well I’m not sure it’s good business, regardless.” He leans on his elbows on the counter and Usanvi shrugs. 

“Whatever pays the bills.”

“Wait a second,” Ruben says quickly, mock-offended, “You pay your bills in kisses too?!”

Ruben smiles as Usnavi laughs, loud and bright and crinkling at his eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey y'all thank you for reading! I don't know when the next chapter will be posted. Let's just focus on the fact that I'm finally coming off of a respiratory infection that stole my brain from me for four days! Glad to be back, glad to bring you some Ruben feels. Let me know your thoughts! <3


End file.
